Originally posted by oldninerdude:
Originally posted by RollinWith21n52:Good post, excellent analysis.
I'm disappointed with your logic MD. I value your opinion, and strongly agree that judging someone in 6 games is insane, however your logic doesn't add up.
The Peterson argument specifically frustrates me. By that logic, you are either assuming that every team has the player they pick in the 1st round as the #1 player on their board, or they should trade the farm to trade up. Was Peterson the first player on our board? maybe. Did we trade for him? no. But there are two parts to the equation. How much better is he than the guy you're going to draft? and what is that going to cost you? I'm sure that everyone outside the top 3 does not draft the #1 player on their board. So who was going to trade with us? AZ who wanted Peterson also? Cincy who had their heart set on AJ Green? Carolina? Denver? Buffalo? They all wanted players who would have been gone by our pick, and would have required the farm for a trade. We couldn't offer that much for 2 reasons: 1. Baalke knew he wanted to draft a QB later in the draft and needed not only the 2nd round pick, but also other ammunition. 2. Last I checked Peterson is not Andrew Luck...you don't trade the farm for CBs!
Then you say he got "lucky" with Aldon Smith. Again, by that logic every team is lucky. The Colts were lucky with Manning, someone will get lucky with (excuse the inadvertent pun) Luck. Other than that, drafting is a skill. Aldon Smith was the top rated player on our board, we wanted to trade down to get him later, and we chose him over players that many thought we would take. Completely unfair to call that luck. You think Watt will be better? Fine. Very possible. You think it's too early to tell if Aldon will actually be good? That's fair again. But to call a pick lucky? Come on!
Same logic goes for FAs. We all know that loosing teams have to do more to get FAs, and sometimes the player doesn't even consider non-playoff teams. But back to my point... we had a value assigned to certain players, and if another team valued them higher, then we stopped competing. That's what you're supposed to do! If you value someone at $3MM/yr, and someone pays them $9MM/yr (random #s) then you didn't fail, you stuck to your guns. As for the 1 year players, I hardly doubt we'll have much trouble re-signing the ones we want. Rodgers has stated he wants to stay here long term. Ginn took a pay cut to stay. I'm sure he'll resign. Alex will do as Harbaugh says. Morgan will have a long term deal before the season ends, and any judgement on Edwards should be saved until he actually plays (how did you say that he was a mistake on Baalke's part? He go injured in game 2! How do you predict that?). You really think signing Costanzo will be an issue? The other 1 year contract guys? Who cares? Too early to tell how good Baalke is, I agree, but reading your review I can't help but see an agenda to be skeptical. Unfair criticism for much of it.
I concur with all of it, except for the part about "valuing" MadDog's opinion. I used to give him the benefit of the doubt, but his posts about the draft (Aldon Smith a "C"? Culliver a "C+"? Bruce Miller an "F" at FB? etc.), about FA, and about Baalke, prove that he doesn't know as much about NFL football, or as much about the Niners, as he would like us all to believe. (To his credit, he sure can BS his way through a post defending his position(s), though.)
In addition, his unwillingness to eat crow when he's clearly wrong (i.e., "Niner's gonna be 1-5 at the bye week") can't help but make one wonder. He had Aldon Smith as the best OLB, but NEVER ranked him higher than Robert Quinn on any version of his "Big Board"? Sure, that seems likely. (Not!)
The former English teacher in me made me break your post up into paragraphs to make it easier to read. I apologize, but sometimes one cannot help old habits.
Finally, MadDog may respond and accuse me (and/or you) of "stalking" him. To which I reply: I've never done anything more than what you did in your post: question his logic. Something I've done with other posts and other posters. Your post here saved me the effort, and you did a much better job than I could have done.
Thanks for the paragraphs...I couldn't actually stand to re-read my own post till that :)